Wisdom can sneak up on you when you least expect it. If you're not paying attention and catch it out of the corner of your eye, you might think it's a spider and squish it flat...

Thursday, April 28, 2016

It's So Much Safer Just to Keep the Genie in the Bottle

One evening last week, Hubby and I were puttering in the front yard--peeking at our itty bitty spinaches, lettuces, and peas--when a friend pulled up to visit for a bit. The subject of the Presidential election came up, as it seems to so often lately, and it's impossible to talk about politics at all right now without talking about Donald Trump. None of us are Trump fans--and if you are, you might want to skip this post and come back tomorrow for a less potentially inflammatory letter. During our conversation, Hubby mentioned that he finds it baffling that several otherwise intelligent people he knows are Trump supporters. It may be the case that Trump has many intelligent supporters, but it is also true that I have yet to hear a remotely intelligent reason for supporting Trump. I have struggled mightily to try to see Trump through the eyes of his supporters, but have so far been unable to do so. Many applaud his willingness to tell it like he sees it, but I find the way he sees it so alarming that I can't be swayed by his forthrightness. Others seem to swallow whole his promise to "make America great again" despite the fact that there he spends significantly more time talking about how awful America is (often in inaccurate ways) than explaining specifically how intends to improve it. (Sorry, Donald and Donald supporters, it's going to take more than repeating how great YOU are to convince me that you have any idea how to make anything else great.)More to the point, Trump is completely without any life experience or demonstrable skill that will be required in the position he is campaigning for. There are people who point to Trump's experience in business as a selling point, but our nation is not a business nor should it be run like one. Even if you are of the belief that it should be run like a business, Donald, with his multiple bankruptcies and numerous questionable business practices, hardly sounds like a good candidate for the position of CEO of the USA.To be honest, though, Donald's qualifications or lack thereof, are really not my main concern. I really try to cling to my faith that the system of checks and balances built into our way of government will stop Trump from being able to do too much damage from his seat in the Oval Office if he is somehow able to win the general election.What does concern me are Trump's supporters, who will have spent more than a year listening to Trump rant in his xenophobic, racist, violence-inciting way. In so doing, Trump is using a position of power to encourage and validate some very dangerous and regressive ideas. And that encouragement and validation will be exponentially more powerful if Trump is actually elected. Even if Trump suddenly veers from his platform of hate and bullying, as his own camp is now claiming he plans to do, it may be more difficult to get that malevolent genie back into the bottle than we anticipate. Ultimately, a vote for Trump* is a vote to reinforce these toxic attitudes that already exist in our society. Normalizing and even celebrating exclusion and physical attacks of people who think, look, act, worship or speak differently than we do may well lead to increased discrimination and violence across the country. I utterly fail to see what will be so great about that.X is for Xenophobia*And as previously suggested, uncast votes may well be votes for Trump.

7 comments:

Trumps had business failure. I don't necessary look as failing as a bad thing. It life lesson.For me personal I don't believe Trump or Cruz will benefit me personal.If it came down between Cruz or Trump I would have to go with Trump. The main reason is "Cruz" don't negotiate at all. That scares me.The odds are I'll vote for Democrat candidate. But all in all I would like to see Bernie in there.Coffee is on

I absolutely agree that failures can be life lessons--but Trump does not strike me as the sort to learn much from failures partly because his wealth largely insulates him from the consequences of his poor decisions. He certainly shows no signs of the humility that I think is one of the most important things we can gain from our mistakes and missteps. Humility is what allows us to look at our own failings with true insight.

And I also agree that Cruz is not a viable option either for lots of reasons.

Bernie would've been nice. I do have some fairly large reservations/discomfort with Hillary, but she seems to me to be a significantly better/safer option than either Cruz or Trump.

J here, of the #atozchallenge Arlee Bird's A to Z Ambassador Team. Have you enjoyed the challenge? Did you hop to other blogs? The end of the alphabet here! Reflections sign up is May 9-- mark a calendar.My blog's giveaway is still going. I'm encouraging everyone to visit more stops. http://jlennidornerblog.what-are-they.comI liked him as an entertaining tv show personality. As a candidate... yikes, just yikes. He's willing to say the horrible things that I suppose some people have been longing to hear. Making hatred okay... pretty much the WORST idea of all time. The frightening thing, far worse than any monster under the bed with an army of spider-clowns waiting to drop us off a cliff, is that the campaign hasn't died yet. People actually voted for him. Half the Republicans in MY state voted for him. I'm surrounded by people who endorse this behavior? Yikes.

Hi, J, I have enjoyed the challenge--and done A LOT of hopping and comment dropping, though mostly on the weekends due to work/school schedule.

And yes, Trump's campaign is terrifying for so many reasons. I think one of the scariest things for me has been discovering how many people actually DO endorse and support his behavior and ideas. Truly terrifying.

This is going to be such an important election season - I can only hope that no one of voting age sits on the sidelines, because every vote is going to count. Trump scares me, especially in light of my background (someone who grew up among people who survived the Holocaust.) I wouldn't trust our checks and balances either against preventing a despot from grabbing control (not saying Trump would be one - just saying that despots have been elected democratically before.) Having said all that, it may surprise you that I am happy that Trump has brought up a couple of things into the spotlight, such as the number of neo Nazis in our midst, hiding in plain sight. Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

I think one of the very few good things about Trump's candidacy is that it has called attention to just how many people share his xenophobic, racist, misogynistic ideas. I do not like to see those ideas validated, but I am definitely all for having them exposed.

About Me

Who is that Masked Mom? I'm the mother of four children, ages 21 to 28, grandma to one, employed full-time in the chemical dependency field, writer in personality if not always in practice,married twenty-eight years, waiting less and less patiently for all the hard-earned wisdom to kick in so I can relax and coast a while....